For those of you who did not see it, Pig Business was a relatively objective film highlighting the activities of Smithfield, one of the US‘s largest suppliers of meat, as it started up operations in Poland, where it has bought up a number of farms and meat processors in the post communist era.

The film concentrated on two main themes; surprisingly, animal welfare did not seem to rank as highly as the Industry’s impact on human health, or the loss of a traditional way of life for Poland’s many small farmers.

Human health issues were linked to the practice of spraying the pig excrement onto nearby fields from a series of lagoons, a method that is now banned for new facilities in the US due to the ill health suffered by nearby residents; needless to say there were similar complaints in Poland.

Predictably, the number of independent farmers was also on the decline, as they cannot compete with the sheer scale of the operations and were, in the main, not prepared to house their livestock in similar intensive conditions. An interesting point made by an American campaigner, suggested that this competitive edge would be seriously eroded if the intensive producers had to pay the full environmental cost of their operations; a point coming into sharper focus in most industries today.

On the lack of sentimentality I would like to applaud the film makers as many people are unconcerned by animal welfare standards or the resulting quality of the intensively raised food. As Tracy stated in the film, food has started to become a commodity: people are only interested in the cheapest price, and this is a point on which I can become quite agitated if drawn into a debate.

Over the last few months, and particularly during the European elections, there has been a lot of dissatisfaction with eastern European immigrants coming over here and taking our jobs.

Why do people not equate their purchasing decisions, and the constant drive towards price reductions, with the loss of jobs in the UK? This film made it plain to me that it’s these same decisions that prevent the same immigrants from making a living at home, unemployment was very high: jobs in agriculture have plummeted to realise the efficiency gains needed to provide us with cheap food.

Why can we not accept that food should have a minimum cost, buy a little less, eat a little less, keep people in jobs, and enjoy better quality food. Paying more might make us think twice about throwing things away.

Capitalism is a double edged sword, and it is easy to blame everything on evil Corporations, but the truth less comforting: they have to sell what we as consumers will buy. If we change our behaviour we would surely all be winners? 

A couple of weeks ago BBC Radio 4′s  Farming Today concentrated on the problem of pests in farming, including some that those of us who are non-farmers would probably not have thought about straight away.  Each day they highlighted a different animal, the damage they caused and the cost of protecting against them.  The animals covered included pigeons, deer and rabbits, wild boar and rats.  

Deer populations have apparently increased in recent years, and are attracted to the crops that are planted by the farmers  as well as causing problems for forestry.  A lot of money is spent on deer proof fencing as they are large enough to barge their way through standard fences if they want to get to the other side.

The rabbit population currently stands at 45 million, they cause damage to crops but also to machinery due to the holes that they create.  Pigeons are also on the increase, woodpigeons being one of the most successful birds of recent years despite those declines seen in other wild bird populations often finding their way into grain stores as well as causing problems in the fields.

Now, I don’t come from a farming background, or even a rural one, so I find it hard to think about fluffy bunnies being a nuisance or deer, of which I have only seen a few, to be sufficient in number to cause damage (although I can quite understand the pigeon problems – we have one that runs amok in our garden most days).  However, there is a burning question in my mind, why are these so expensive to buy at the butchers or supermarket?  If these animals are costing hundreds of millions of pounds each year then why do two venison steaks cost £5.99 at Waitrose, why are pigeons about the same price as chicken when they are about a tenth of the size and why, is it almost impossible to buy rabbit (I have even tried a local butcher for rabbit and venison).  Even if I could buy rabbit, the chances are that it would be farmed.  Yes, that’s right, approximately 95% of rabbit sold in this country is farmed (and often not in conditions that are much better than those of battery chickens).  So, in response to the damage these are causing can we not employ people to humanely kill these pests and sell them locally for a reasonable price – are we missing a trick, can Jamie Oliver create a market for rabbit?  Is it time to simplify the legislation, are we concerned that these ‘pests’ are going to become extinct.  We can’t leave it all to the polecats (although maybe this is a case for the reintroduction of lynx and wolves?).

Four types of field margin are defined by the UK Biodiversity Partnership and the UK Government in Action plan for Cereal field margins.

• A ‘Wildlife Strip’ 6m wide adjacent to a cereal crop, together with a.1 m ‘Sterile Strip’ between the wildlife strip and the crop. The wildlife strip is cultivated once a year but not cropped; the Sterile Strip is maintained so as to prevent aggressive arable weeds spreading into the adjacent cereal crop.
• A ‘Conservation Headland’ either 6m or 12m wide forming the outer margin of the crop and separated from an adjacent field boundary or other vegetation by a.1 m Sterile Strip. The Conservation Headland is cropped with cereals but is managed with reduced inputs of pesticides so as to favour wild arable plants and invertebrates.
• A combined wildlife strip and Conservation Headland, separated by a Sterile Strip and managed as described as above.
• Game crops, stubble or grassland fallows lying between annually cropped land and the field boundary.

According to their figures such land could be very significant, more than compensating for the lost set-aside.

The margins of cereal fields could be managed in ways which would benefit wildlife, without having serious detrimental effects on the remaining cropped area. Estimating average national field size to be 12 ha suggests that there are about 400,000 km of cereal field edge in the UK. If all such boundaries included a 6m managed margin, some 200,000 ha of land would be brought into sensitive management (600,000 ha at 12m width).

It seems to me that this approach could be far more useful than its predecessor: a network of margins could link the whole countryside with designated nature reserves and urban spaces. These are exactly the type of ‘green corridors’ that a landscape ecology approach requires.

However, this idilic concept may be limited by the use of non-organic farming methods on the main crops. What about the traditional meadow required for many wildflower species? Find out more about the benefits of this system for birds and small mammals at the RSPB. Buglife, in association with the UK DEFRA, further discuss of the pros and cons, especially for insects.